Warriors snap skid with overtime win in Saskatoon
Moose Jaw Warriors forward Brayden Tracey has often looked like the best player on the ice this Western Hockey League season, regardless of who the Warriors oppose.
On Sunday afternoon, the stats backed him up.
Tracey scored three times and assisted on Ryder Korczak’s game-winning goal 28 seconds into overtime as the Warriors took a 5-4 win over the Saskatoon Blades in Saskatoon.
The win snapped a six-game losing streak for the Tribe and saw them return to .500 in the East Division standings with a 6-6-1-1 record. They had dropped a 4-2 decision to Calgary on Friday. Warriors 5, Saskatoon 4 OT
Tracey’s hat trick included a pair of power play goals and put the Warriors up 3-1 26 seconds into the second period. The veteran-laden Blades wouldn’t go down without a fight, though, as Chase Wouters scored his second of the game and Riley McKay would add a pair of markers to see Saskatoon take a 4-3 lead with 5:04 gone in the final frame.
That set the stage for Bryden Kiesman to score the first of his WHL career with 4:29 to play and send the game into overtime.. Bailey Brkin turned aside 26 shots to earn the victory, Nolan Maier had a decidedly less-busy night in the Saskatoon net, turning aside a total of 10 shots.
Calgary 4, Warriors 2
The Warriors might not have found the win column against Calgary, but the end result was far better than the two teams’ previous
Western Hockey League contest a week ago.
The Hitmen held off a furious first-period push by the Warriors and would eventually go on to a 4-2 victory after winning 7-3 in their previous meeting on Oct. 18 in Calgary.
“We didn’t have a very good game the last time we played Calgary, we weren’t very good defensively,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter. “We played much better in Lethbridge and were able to build off that. We worked on a lot of things in practice to implement in our game and I thought we played very well tonight.” The contest featured a milestone for a member of the Warriors, as defenceman Braden Miller scored his first WHL goal at the 11:37 mark of the second period, taking a cross-ice feed from Tate Popple and rifling a shot from the slot over Hitmen goaltender Brayden Peters’ blocker.
“It was just a great heads up play by Pops, he was able to find the middle of the ice and I was able to get a quick shot off and it went in,” Miller said. “I was pretty excited about it, it’s the first of many I hope and I’ll keep going from there.”
Riley Stotts and Josh Prokop scored power play goals two minutes apart late in the first period to give Calgary a 2-0 lead out of a frame dominated by the Warriors – the shots sat at 10-2 for the Tribe at one point in the period before finishing 11-7.
Miller scored the only goal in the second period before Calgary’s Jonas Peterek and the Warriors’ Owen Hardy exchanged markers in the third. Carson Focht added an empty net goal with 1:22 to play.
Bailey Brkin turned aside 22 shots in the Warriors goal, Peters would finish with 20 stops on the night.